


From the Shadows

by Thatoneguyyoudidntknowfromtumblr



Series: Shadows [4]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Canon Blending, Exposition, G1 and fanon, Gang Violence, I made a translation table for it i'm not kidding, If I knew I'd ask, Jazz before he's Jazz, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mind Manipulation, Origin Story, Original Character Death(s), Pre-War, Prime - Freeform, Swearing, a mix between DreamWave, and bay killed him, and head of special operations and tactics, and left hand of the prime, approximation of cybertronian time used, background politics, because I’m not a huge fan of bayverse or IDW, but he's still a BAMF, but planning on some shenanigans in the series eventually, cybertronian equivalent of human swearing, ignore where it says this is part four, just like he should be, mentions of abuse of police authority, mentions of sentinel prime, more tags as I think of them and the story updates, mostly because IDW nerfed Jazz hardcore, platonic relationships only so far, preprogramming, seriously he was second in command, terms lifted from other authors without knowing who originally coined them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 06:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12052803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatoneguyyoudidntknowfromtumblr/pseuds/Thatoneguyyoudidntknowfromtumblr
Summary: In a back alley of Polihex, a slim silver mech wakes with a corrupted memory stack and almost uncanny luck.  Or is he so lucky, haunted by not knowing who he is,whathe is, or why his processor will sometimes flood with information with no warning?And what is that gloriousnoise?In an attempt to break a six year writer's block, I'm falling back on an old favorite that I've been wanting to rework with updated terms and a blend of the G1 cartoon, DreamWave comics and IDW comics.  Also included are some fanon terms that I can't find the origins of.  If you recognize certain ideas, abilities or concepts as your own (and I didn't come up with them on my own rather than adopting something I've seen in multiple fics across multiple authors here), let me know and I'll alter the bibliography accordingly.Part one of three, possibly four.As it stands, some characters here belong to ChibiJaime aka Racoonmama and I am using them with their permission.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a lot of different Cybertronian time tables out there, so this is the most accurate one I could cobble together that also made the most sense to me:
> 
> the format is:  
> time value = time name = earth equivalent or parts per whole
> 
> 1 second = klik = 1 minute;  
> 1 minute = breem = 8.3 minutes;  
> 1 hour = joor = 1.2 hours;  
> 1 day = orn = day/32 joor;  
> 1 week = decacycle = 16 orn  
> 1 month = metacycle = 6 (5.9285) years/ 4 decacycles;  
> 1 year = vorn = 83 years/14 metacycles

* * *

His pede collided with a small container, sending it clattering against the alley floor and he weaved, coming to rest against a wall which seemed to be more grime than metal. A lance of pain from his processor nearly sent him to one knee, his hands flying up with a half-formed plan of finding the source when another pulse nearly drove the thought from his processor. Probing fingers found only two stubby sensor horns and a short crest with another node facing forward, but no sign of what could be causing the pain. With a huff of an ex-vent, his back slid along the wall until he was in a balanced crouch, head down, helm in his hands, resigned to waiting out the pain.

 

Fingers were covering his sensor horns. He lifted his head to find it had been his own hands interfering with his ability to scan the alley around him. 

> _Access memory bank_  
>  _Query: last action performed_  
>  _Error_  
>  _Unable to establish link with current memory(Error: data table inaccessible._  
>  _Query: Error: data table inaccessible_  
>  _Return: possible corrupted partition, possible medical memory block._  
>  _Query memory bank: index all data tables tagged memory_  
>  _Return: conflict_  
>  _Error_  
>  _Conflicting memory index programming found_  
>  **RunSetProgram Lok2.!$.5Blank_Slat#**  
>  _RunSetProgram_  
>  _Program confirmed_  
>  _Access memory bank_  
>  _Error: Unable to establish link with current memory table_  
>  _Query: Error establishing link with current memory table_  
>  _Return: Table does not exist_  
>  **RunProgram Lok2.$#.^ &Create**  
>  _RunProgram_  
>  _Program confirmed_  
>  _Query memory bank: search and return all memory tagged data tables_  
>  _Return: Self-Identification table corrupted_  
>  _Return: SkillSet table confirmed_  
>  _Return: sensor input table confirmed_  
>  _Return: $#^ &*765$%&3 table confirmed_  
>  _Return:_

 The wall behind him vibrated and he placed a hand against it, sensitive tactile sensors springing to life. All of his sensors snapped open moments later, finally bringing his attention to the world outside his own processor. Surrounding him was a dank and dirty alley, his left leading to what looked like a marginally cleaner street while his right dribbled into darkness. He shifted slightly and his audios categorized the slight echoes as indicating the darkness hid either a doorway or a sharp turn further into the warren of buildings. Simultaneously, his sensors returned three key pieces of information; he appeared to be alone, the alley floor was suspiciously free of refuse piles and the building behind him was still vibrating in a strange, shifting rhythm.

The rhythm caught his attention and after a quick glance around to visually confirm the alley was, for now, empty and he turned to press both of his hands and his helm against the wall. The rhythm now held steady and he could hear—

Not enough. He very carefully touched a sensor horn to the wall, straining to hear past what had to be professional sound insulation. The sounds had no names to identify them. He didn’t care. He was entranced. A line of code was pulling at him but he found himself fully capable of ignoring it, so he did, too enthralled by the … noise.

The line of code finally dug itself into his mind and he pushed off the wall to look around again, abruptly on edge for no reason he could name. Making his way to the street end of the alley, he extended careful sensors while keeping his EM field a thin veneer over his armor. Light vehicle traffic, very little pede traffic. A check of his fuel systems showed enough energon to get by for the orn, another of his subspace provided weapons and kit but no energon or shanix. This, he knew without having to know anything else, was a significant problem. Priorities he hadn’t been aware of until this moment solidified in his tattered processor: find energon, find shelter. Preferably both in the same place. One last glance down at himself confirmed a somewhat tarnished silver paint over a slim but ordinary ground racer frame. He brushed his hands over his face to make sure there wasn’t anything obviously wrong discovering a visor along the way, then stepped out into the street.

A loud crash registered and a graceful pirouette later a large and heavy body was sent flying over his shoulder into the street. Hearing a bellow from the same direction as the first mech had come, he pivoted on his left pede and assisted the second attacker in joining his fellow in the road. He snapped his head around, looking to see if the two had friends and met the gaze of a third large mech, this one standing in the doorway of what looked like a low-end energon bar. Advertising for a small variety of mid-grade and engex brands shone dimly through the dingy windows on either side of him adding a splash of color to the otherwise drab building. It had been his building that had the _noise_.

The gray mech gave him a once over and grimaced. He disappeared, then a third mech went sailing out the door before the gray mech reappeared. “You’re banned. If I see any of you again, the Polihex Medical Residency will have new patients for the students to practice on!”

 _Polihex._ While the gray mech was arguing with the trio in the street, the word was seized on by the processor of the visored mech and city information of all sorts, from street layouts to the current tax on silicon, cascaded through his mind. Movement on the street distracted him a klik later, prompting him to look over just in time to see the three mechs transform and, after some further insults from the third and last mech who had been forcibly ejected from the bar, leave. The departure left the gray mech regarding him with dim amber optics, more red than yellow.

The larger mech gave a heavy ex-vent and his shoulders sagged. “Slag luck you got caught in that, mech. I’m glad you can handle yourself.” He paused, giving the visored mech a longer look. “Frag. C’mon, half a cube, on the house.”

The smaller mech took half a step forward, but hesitated. Visor met optics again and he tilted his head slightly, questioning.

This earned an expression to tired to be a true smile. “Been on the street a while, then? You’ve got that look.” He straightened his shoulders and disappeared back into the bar once more. Drifting closer to the door, the silver mech shifted to get a better view of the interior without putting himself into immediate grabbing range. This vantage provided a limited view of what seemed to be a clean but somewhat shabby decor. A handful of kliks later, the signs in the windows and over the door went dark while the previously low lights inside blazed to full brightness. The owner returned with a bottle, poured out half a cube’s worth into a mug and offered it. When a brief scan showed nothing in the mug but a standard grade of energon, black hands accepted it and the energon was quickly gone. Politely, the silver mech offered the mug back and it was received with a soft noise of amusement. “Manners. Primus, the day I’m given better manners from a stranger than my own … Listen. Like I said, I don’t know you from the Prime, but you look like you need work."

A nod was his only reply, but the gray mech didn’t seem to mind.

“After tonight, I’ve got a couple of openings. Won’t be much,” the large mech warned, “ornly energon, a place to recharge, to start. Maybe more later if we get on. Right now, I need a pad run to Midway. You know where that is?”

Another nod, the silver mech finally stepping to within arm’s reach of the larger one, who produced the pad and offered it over. On the display there was an image of a cream and silver mech above an address: 597-17-3 Midway Center.

“Get there in a couple of breems and you’ll beat the morning rush.” The silver mech was suddenly given a sharp look and he took half a step back. “I’ll be sending a comm along to make sure he knows you’re coming. Pad’s private; he’ll know if you accessed it.”

One final nod and the silver mech twisted himself into his alt, using his repulsers to adjust his trajectory before shooting off toward the city center. Traffic worsened the closer he got to his destination, prompting a map of the city to overlay the visual circuits of his alt. Multicolored lines began threading their way along the map and an arrow appeared in his heads up display, indicating a side road that looked almost exactly like the alley he had onlined in. An irritated shout from the cargo hauler behind him was all the encouragement he needed to take the short cut, his engine and hoverpads swiftly taking him through a maze of backstreets and semi-private drives. He emerged into the city’s business district, finding that though the grime from the industrial center hadn’t quite reached Midway and while the mechs here were cleaner, many still had a furtive look about them.

Transforming to head inside he took a klik to take in the flurry of movement in the foyer of the building. The mechs further inside were milling about, most reading pads or talking to their fellows while awaiting one of the lifts set in a bank along the far wall. Spotting a different way up, he wove through the crowd until he reached the door to the stairs, falling into his vehicle mode once it was closed behind him. Repulsers and hoverpads made quick work of the seventeen stories between him and his target, delivering him into a quiet kind of busy which directly contrasted to the loud commotion below. The hallway was lit to the comfort level of the mechs who held offices here, even if at this time of the shift most of the doors were locked tightly, only darkness behind the window set into each door. The third door down was one of the open ones, light tumbling out into the darker hallway in an almost gleeful yellow. Approaching the door carefully, the silver mech peeked inside, unwilling to disturb anyone at work by walking into their office unannounced.

“Looking for someone?”

He jerked and wheeled, sensors belatedly informing him of the mech’s presence. Setting the dark hallway to his back wasn’t ideal, but the owner of the graveled voice was between him and the only exit he currently knew of. The mech regarding him was of similar build to the bartender and the silver mech identified him as the target of his delivery by the cream paint and silver trim. That his expression was kind and his optics amused were just enough to keep the visored mech from backing out of arm’s reach. The silver mech offered the with a slight bow, edging past once it had been delivered. A hand descended onto his shoulder and he twisted out from under it, the move leaving him facing the cream and silver mech, whose expression was still kind but had another tinge the silver mech didn’t immediately identify. Before he could, or before he could lower his hands from the defensive stance he had fallen into, the cream mech offered a different pad. On top of the screen was a credit chip and the silver mech straightened slightly to turn a thumb to his own chest.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” the cream mech said by way of apology. “The pad’s for Highgate, the stick’s for you. Go on, take it.” He smiled. “I haven’t met a youngster yet who doesn’t need a bit of extra shanix.”

The silver mech found himself giving a beaming smile in thanks, accepting both the pad and the stick. The stick went straight into his subspace pocket but he kept the pad in hand, watching the cream mech for a moment longer. The larger mech gave him another smile. “You’re welcome. Better get going.”

The stairs took less effort going down than up. The trip through the city was equally uneventful and a breem later he had arrived at the bar, where he was met with a problem; a closed glyph blazed from the front door, even in the light of the new day. An ex-vent of indecision is all he allowed himself before approaching the door and knocking three times. If Highgate had forgotten or changed his mind about the stranger he had met earlier, at least he had the credit stick safely in his subspace. He didn’t know how much was on it but no matter how little it may be, it was better than nothing.

A series of clicks from inside had him backing off onto the sidewalk, making sure he had the pad in his hands to offer the moment the door came open. Highgate cycled his optics at the silver mech, particularly when the pad was offered. “What, couldn’t find it?” He accepted the pad and his optic ridges rose toward his helmet. “Hnh. Delivered all the way to Midway, got a reply and back here inside of four breems? You’ve earned yourself a job, mech, and the rest of that cube. C’mon inside, close the door behind you.”

With that, Highgate turned and vanished from the doorway. The silver mech was left standing on the street, gaze locked on to the open door. With an all-over body shake to get his circuits settled, he followed Highgate inside, carefully closing the door behind himself. He looked up to see Highgate watching with an approving nod, something which gave him a fraction more confidence, even if he couldn’t decide why. He gave his new surroundings a cursory inspection, noting the spacious interior with comfortably worn furniture and an equally worn bar top behind which Highgate was pouring out the promised half cube. Instead of crossing to offer the smaller mech the mug like before, he simply placed it on the bartop, then turned his back and began sorting the bottles on display. It was an almost startling display of trust and the only thing that stopped the silver mech from crossing to accept it was a splash of mechfluid on the floor.  
Not hearing movement from behind him Highgate turned, giving a heavy ex-vent when he saw what had caught the quiet mech’s attention.

“That’s why I’ve got a couple of openings in my staff. My bouncer is, was, always getting into fights with the customers instead of showing the door like he was supposed to. Primus grant the next buymech he goes to—“ he cut himself off with a frustrated rumble from his engine. “You saw me chuck him out, I just forgot to clean that up. Grab a stool at the bar, I’ll take care of it while you have your energon. G’wan, now, I know you’ve gotta be hungry.”

Nodding, the silver mech skirted the stain and settled on a stool to sip the energon while watching Highgate work. Under the brighter interior lights he could see the other mech’s true paint, a solid coat of steel blue which gave a dull gleam when hit by the lights just right. The dirt on his form wasn’t from neglect, the silver mech could now see that it was a mess which had resulted from the earlier altercation and Highgate had yet to get to a washrack. Decision made to trust the older mech, the silver mech applied himself to his energon, allowing himself a soft ex-vent when he was done. Even the soft noise was caught by Highgate, who tossed a brief glance in his company’s direction.

“Job’s cleaning up after kicking out; what I’m doing now’ll be your job on opening tonight. Don’t worry—“ Highgate added, apparently having noticed the silver mech’s gaze return to the spot on the now clean floor, “that’s the exception, not the rule. I don’t run a brawlhouse. Anyway, you’ll clean after kicking out, make sure the mugs, cubes and bottles are clean, wipe down the floor, tables, stools. You get the picture. I’ll ask you to run more messages, too, and I’ll pay you accordingly. So, you got a name, or what?”

The silver mech froze.

> _Access memory bank_  
>  _Query: whoami_  
>  _Error: self-identification data table corrupted_  
>  **RunProgram Lok@.$#^.!++=[…|**  
>  _RunProgram_  
>  _Program denied: Program code corrupted_  
>  _Awaiting input_

He dropped his gaze and shook his head, prompting a skeptical grunt from Highgate. Silence drifted around them, broken only by the increasing amount of traffic out front. Finally, Highgate grunted again. “I’m too tired to deal with this right now,” he muttered. “Gotta call you something … not like you’ve been chatting my audio off to give me a clue. Okay, you’ll be Silent until you decide otherwise.”   

> _External input of ‘Silent’ accepted._  
>  _whoami query returned: self-identification table updated with entry ‘Silent’_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: TRON: Legacy, TRON: Legacy: The Remix, Mass Effect 2: Legion, Cowboy Bebop OST (because you can't write about Jazz without listening to jazz).


	2. Chapter 2

“I’d say you were Primus-sent if I didn’t want to give you an ego,” Highgate said, a hoarse wheeze under his words. Silent flashed him a grin and a swift arpeggio of a hand signified his amusement with the statement; both of them knew that while the younger mech’s confidence had been steadily growing as he discovered his own competence, never once had he shown signs of putting on airs and graces. Employer and employee had forged a solid friendship based on the trust extended and accepted on the day Silent first woke behind Highgate’s bar. They worked seamlessly together to clean the bar after a metacycle of close association during which the silver mech had watched both the energon prices rise and Highgate’s health decline, seemingly at the same pace. The owner of the bar had been forced to let his employees leave for better jobs in cities not yet affected by the rumors of an impending shortage. Silent was the last, both due to needing much less in the way of pay than the others and not having prospects elsewhere.

Over that same metacycle and with the departure of the other employees, Silent had taken on more and more of the tasks necessary to keep the bar up and running. It wasn’t an effort he resented in the slightest and he indicated to Highgate simply by staying put that he wasn’t opposed to the extra work. During operating hours he now functioned as a bouncer, his smaller stature causing the overcharged and belligerent mechs who encountered him to underestimate how well he could land them in the street out front with little or no damage to the bar itself. It was an ability he never had the chance to wonder about, much like the _noise_ he had heard first upon waking, as even when the bar was not open to patrons he had a job to do. Running pads all over the city took far more energon than comm traffic but Highgate never explained why he didn’t want to trust his conversations to the city’s infonet.

The bar was shabbier now than it had been when Silent had first arrived. The regulars never seemed to notice or mind, only wanting an inexpensive cube to get them through the next orn. For some, it would be the only energon they would be able to afford which made Highgate’s decision to close one Silent had seen him rehash again and again, trying to find some way to mitigate the rising costs. The last straw had been a recent change in regulations forcing all of the small business owners to register both themselves and their employees for new operating licenses. With the new licenses came new fees, a percentage of the business’ profits sent to the city government based on the number of employees and a tax on the purchase of energon itself. The resulting funds were supposed to go toward cleaning up the industrial center and to support the smallest businesses during future economic downfalls but Highgate and the other small business owners in the area were yet to see any sort of benefit.

“At least the local medical clinics are actually getting some of the pot this time,” Highgate had sighed at one point, the first vestiges of what would become the lingering wheeze showing at the end of the ex-vent. It was the reason more of the owners hadn’t protested the taxes and fees; the local clinics, according to Highgate, had been hurting for fresh infusions of shanix from the city for vorns.

They finished stacking the chairs at one end of the public space, the barstools already stacked next to the freshly cleaned bar. While Highgate caught his breath, Silent switched the power lead from the advertisements in the window to the closed sign, made sure the locks on the front door were secure, catalogued the remaining energon and cleared the till. The last he had only taken over the last decacycle, leaving Highgate free to spend most of his time tending bar or arguing with his energon suppliers over the rising costs.

Tasks done, the two paused to look around the space. It had been their last orn of business, not that Highgate had been able to bring himself to announce that fact at kicking out. The building’s new ownership would be taking over the writ at mid-orn, the same time Highgate would be closing down the few accounts he still had open with various brands of engex. Mid-orn was still close to eighteen joor away, but neither of them wanted to be around for the painful task of handing over ownership of the building Highgate had owned and operated from most of his adult life.

Highate’s intakes gave a rattling cough and Silent crossed to hand the older mech half a mug of gently warmed oil that he had on hand for just such an occurrence. The oil, which had first helped keep the misfires and coughs away for joor at a time now lasted barely fifteen breem, but it would be enough to get the ill mech back to his hab suite. Highgate grunted his appreciation and downed the oil, subspacing the mug and leading the way to the back door when he was done. There was no need to return the mug to the washing up station now, after all.

As had become habit Silent shadowed his former employer to his residence, helping him inside and settling him onto the padded recharge berth. He listened to the large mech’s engine grumble and sputter while Highgate got into a comfortable position, checking to make sure oil, gently refined low-grade energon and a commlink were within easy reach. For the first time, the older mech reached out and deliberately touched Silent, resting a hand on the smaller mech’s arm.

“I know you don’t have anywhere else to go, mechling.” A fondness underlaying his tone made the term into an endearment. “I’m sorry to turn you out like this.”

Silent paused, looking at the hand on his arm for a long klik. He then looked up at the mech whom had named him and offered a gentle smile, taking a breath to online his vocalizer. “Thanks for trustin’ a streetmech with no memorys’re a name to call his own,” he murmured, listening to his own liquid tones and watching Highgate’s expression flick to surprise. “You’ve been more’n generous givin’ me a good start.”

Highgate’s hand tightened briefly, then let go. “It was a pleasure,” he managed past the static beginning to build in his vocalizer. “A way to pay some kindness forward.” He paused, his intakes taking in a gasp more than a breath. “There’s still some energon in the bar. The code for the back door hasn’t changed yet.” He was forced to pause again to draw another breath. “Take whatever you need to leave Polihex.”

Silent once more, the younger mech nodded with one last smile of thanks. Traversing the city was much faster without needing to keep to speeds Highgate’s tortured engine could handle and he was soon back at the bar, slipping into the darkened interior via the door tucked into an alcove in the alley he had first onlined in. Finding all of the energon caches behind the bar and inside Highgate’s private office took some time but soon enough Silent had enough to get him at least to Tyrest with a good amount left over, or Iacon with enough to see him through his first couple of orn in the capital city. It was a choice he contemplated while he scavenged for anything else that might be useful during the long road trip to either city. He could take a public transport but the thought of—

Pounding on the front door jerked him out of his processor and he froze, wondering if it was a patron too overcharged to read the closed glyph he knew was glowing on the front door. Moving to give credit to his name, Silent subspaced everything he had scrounged and made his way to the back door with the intent of slipping away unnoticed. The heavy pounding on the front door resumed, encouraging the silver mech even more firmly to the back door. A glance at the closed circuit cameras monitoring both doors brought Silent to a complete standstill; half a dozen heavily armed and armored mechs stood ready at each entrance.

A third round of pounding came, sounding far more impatient. “Highgate!” The voice commanded from the front, Silent able to see the green and white colored femme from the relative safety behind the cameras. The treads forming bowed spaulders on each shoulder and the heavy armor covering the rest of her form showed her alt was likely some kind of tank. Not someone Silent would have been willing to take on as a patron with engex making their control over their movement chips cloudy, much less fully sober. The shades of white and green adorning every mech outside the bar marked them as Polihex Special Response Team operatives which made even the smallest of them a very real threat.

From listening to snatches of conversations between different patrons, Silent had been able to pick up some rudimentary understanding of Polihex’s current political situation and knew the PSRT didn’t do welfare checks. Wary, he ghosted backward toward a door set into the ceiling, keeping his gaze on the cameras for as long as he could. The next round of pounding covered any sound opening the door and pulling down the narrow ladder leading to the very small overflow stock area Silent had been recharging in during his employment.

“Highgate!” The commanding voice barked, irritation clear in her tone. “This is the Polihex Special Response Team! You are hereby being served a warrant issued for your arrest on grounds of being suspected of associating with and or the aid of the terrorists calling themselves Decepticons. Open this door immediately!”

The soft click of the ladder returning into the ceiling once Silent had ascended was underlined by a scrabbling sound just loud enough to be heard through the muffling of both the front door and the hatch now closed beneath him. It, along with the next announcement from the authorities surrounding the building, had the young mech diving through the maze of empty boxes toward the roof access. If he was found he would be arrested on the spot, tossed into the general population of the Polihex Incarceration Center and, if he was lucky, occasionally segregated into an interrogation room on the off chance he would know something about any of their open cases. It hadn’t always been the case, some of the older patrons had grumbled. Once the city’s enforcers of the law had done just that, enforced the law, not just the political whims of the city’s elite.

“Highgate, this is the PSRT! Officer with a tracker, call out and open the door or it will be broken down and you will get bit!”

Someone high up in Polihex wanted Highgate badly.

The shouting continued, now muffled beyond recognizable words by Silent’s distance from both doors. The shriek of laser cutters against the heavy front door was unmistakable, as were the excited binary calls from the quadruped trackers when they were finally able to force themselves inside. Reaching his hatch to safety, Silent jammed his shoulder against it when it didn’t open upon being unlocked. A few hard shoves later and it crashed open against the roof. The young mech had half a klick to hope it had been covered by the noisy searching of the bar below but the sudden intensifying of the binary crackles below showed it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Silent took a long moment to allow his sensors to map the roofscape as far as they could in all directions. The bar was bordered by sheer walls in two directions and the PSRT was between him and the street. The part of his processor which had supplied him with information on Polihex on his first orn and the knowledge on how to defend himself when he became a bouncer opened once again and he immediately knew that climbing either one of the walls was a bad idea; they would have stationed officers on the street to observe while others got the neighboring buildings clear. Glancing around again he was surprised but glad to see no snipers covering the roof. They were prepared for a large, possibly sick mech to either give himself up or make a last stand inside, not a small silver shadow but would be vigilant for anyone attempting to sneak from the building using conventional means.

He was no mech of conventional means, the new information supplied, though it fell just short of telling him exactly what kind of mech he was. Shaking off the thoughts for a less pressing moment, he trotted almost the length of the roof before dropping into alt as quietly as he could. He gunned his engine with a healthy, muted purr and hurled himself at an open window in the next building down which was just above parallel to the roof of the bar. The owner of said window spotted him just before he sailed through and threw up an arm in a confused effort to either stop the uninvited guest or protect himself from the intruder.

Silent flowed into a transform just in time to catch himself on the mech’s arm and halt most of his forward momentum. He used the rest to evade a punch thrown his way, darting out the door and along the hall toward another window casting the orn’s light into the otherwise unlit space. Knowing the PSRT would soon be storming this building to make sure no one had attempted what he had just done, he broke the window’s old and rusted lock with a sharp blow from an elbow. He eased himself out, used one hand to close the window again and dropped into the alley below, for once deliberately entering the warren of private drives, secret homeless camps, syx dens and buymech flats. A few shanix here, a sharp blow delivered there and more than a few refusals to offers of casual interface, free of charge, no conditions attached, saw him pass in relative safety from the industrial center to the artisan’s quarter. From there it was a simple matter to join the traffic heading out of the city.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: cybertronian crass language. Translations in the note at the bottom and there is adult language down there. It might seem strange to have a translation table for curse words, but there you go. 
> 
> Edit: Chapter is finished and ready to go.

* * *

 Try as he might, Silent couldn’t remember the reason his processor had highlighted Tyrest as the more desirable city in which to start over.  While Polihex had been dangerous because of the PSRT serving those who controlled the governor, Tyrest’s enforcers were controlled by the highest bidder each individual or partnership could find.  It left the city in the grips of a gang war with scrabbles over territory that were every bit as vicious as the Decepticon attacks reportedly were.  Polihex’s industrial quarter may have been coated in grime, but in the more affluent parts of the city Silent had seen while running messages for Highgate the city’s true steel blue color still held its own.  From the worst slum to the estate of the governor, Tyrest seemed to be smeared in grunge and only in rare, sheltered pockets could the city’s original warm, rich amber shine through.  It was a state that was reflected in the city’s inhabitants. 

Noticing this, Silent had roughed his paint to a matte silver the orn he had arrived; only the members of whichever gang was on top had a shine to their armor.  A newcomer to the city with no background, no voice but enough credits to spend on detailing, even to purchase a simple DIY kit, would attract the kind of attention from either the enforcers or any of the gangs that Silent knew he needed to avoid. 

A metacycle later had seen him picked up for then subsequently dropped from a handful of different jobs, each paying less than the last.  Employers knew they were spoiled for choice of potential employees and there was always someone willing to work for less should their particular company’s profits dip too low.  Silent’s last job had provided just enough energon to do the work and nothing more.  He hadn’t dared to recharge deeply enough for a proper defrag; without the obvious protection of any authority, his proximity sensors had alerted him more than once to someone desperate enough to attack for nothing more than the energon in his lines.  After the fourth time, he had no choice but to abandon the small patch of floor he had been able to rent in order to try and find even a marginally safer place to curl up between attempts to find yet another job.  

Currently, he was crouched above the street in a small nook between a wall and a statue dedicated to a mech whose name meant nothing to him.  His visor took in and recorded everything for his processor to go over later while the rest of his attention was focused on what his next move should be.  Ideally, he’d head to one of the other neutrally-controlled cities.  It seemed like every other orn had a newsbit on the infonet of a city declaring its allegiance, however, so the longer he hesitated, the fewer choices he would have.  In the most recent announcement, Tarn had openly publicized their support of the Decepticons.  Silent had lost his most recent job due to the uncertainties of trading with the fledgeling government the Council was still referring to as a terrorist cult.  Megatron himself had broken into the infonet, broadcasting an open invitation to all those who felt wronged by the Senate, Council or the Prime himself to join the Decepticons.  He welcomed younger creations of noble houses, Kaon pit gladiators, Polihexian buymechs, the unclaimed whose sparkers refused to acknowledge their lineage, Vosnian Seeker-elite, even Autobot deserters.  Any and all who wanted refuge from the Functionists would have a home in the Decepticon revolution.  The clip had circled in Silent’s processor for orns, prompting a restlessness which caused his armor to crawl and tanks to roil.  Half of him seemed to want to go to the Decepticons, the other half was suggesting he do his best to stockpile all of the energon he could before losing himself in either the sonic canyons outside of Ibex or the ruins of Praxus.  Despite all official reports to the contrary, there were rumors of survivors among the legendary Praxian Enforcers whom were once again establishing the city as a protected sanctuary.  The almost bigoted isolationist tendencies of the city were mentioned by few within Silent’s hearing, but those spreading the rumors insisted the Enforcers were welcoming everyone, now that the walls had been breeched.  

Over all of this was the live stream from the capital city of Iacon.  The vast city-state sprawling across Cybertron’s north pole was the consolidation of the Council’s power, home to the Senate, the Temple of the Prime and the only officially recognized army on Cybertron: the Autobots.  Sentinel Prime was featured on the stream at least once a joor, condemning the insurrectionists, reminding the planet of the Fall of Praxus and the growing list of attacks on the Autobot bases outside of a number of formerly neutral cities.  Mechs were dying, the Prime kept declaring.  Innocent mechs, only trying to live their lives in peace.  Sentinel also encouraged the governments of both the allied and friendly cities, always careful to not use the word ‘neutral’, to confirm their allegiance to the Autobots and recruit bigger enforcer forces to help keep unrest to a minimum.  This last, for the most part, was falling on the offline audios of city governors unwilling to believe the Decepticons were expanding so swiftly as to be a legitimate threat while they simultaneously demanded protection from the Autobot army.

Silent wasn’t sure where he was going next, but the idea of joining the Autobots made his processor balk even more sharply than joining the Decepticons.  At least if he made his way to Kaon or Tarn, he might have a chance to—

A whisper from one of his proximity sensors, set for the street below just in case someone paused under his nook long enough to potentially notice him, caught his attention.  Silent drew his EM field practically against his protoform, freezing in place to prevent his armor from grating against the rough metal of the statue.  Quickly, he sorted through possible reasons for someone to stop here: resting _not likely_ _,_ a parts dealer looking for burnouts, addicts or anyone else vulnerable enough to be caught _possible but this area’s still pretty well lit_ _,_ one of the corrupt Tyrest enforcers looking for an easy arrest to earn some energon _doesn’t sound like heavy enough armor_ _,_ or a scout for the gang currently in control of the area, simply called Us, _this city would just frag me that way, wouldn’t it._

The odd feeling of internal discussion startled Silent just long enough that an off-white hand snaked up to grip his ankle.  It held fast against his reflexive move of slamming his heel into the base of the statue in an attempt to crush the hand between it and his leg.  The owner of the hand snarled, unceremoniously yanking from his perch and tossing him into a nearby dark corner, a heavy pede pressing into his back to keep him down.  He switched his visor to accept feed from the audio sensor stubs on his helmet and his proximity sensors, building himself an image of his attacker.  

That the mech had more energy in his EM field than Silent had teeked in a long time was immediately apparent.  Silent’s sensors skipped over the other mech’s armor, building him up as shorter than average, but with a breadth of shoulder that hinted at the source of the strength he had used to throw the young mech around so easily.  Hardened armor sent back a harsh echo with a thin line of finish to soften it ever so slightly.  This was no innocent worker pausing for a rest, it wasn’t a parts dealer or even an enforcer.  The foot removed itself and before he could react a hand grabbed Silent by the back of the neck to yank him to his feet.  He was forcibly pivoted and the moment he felt the hand slide from his neck to the small of his back he shifted his weight enough to use the momentum provided by the other mech’s attempt to shove him into the base of the statue to jump.  His left pede-tip landed on the small lip he had been aiming for and Silent kicked off, backflipped and hit the floor in a crouch facing his opponent.  The silver mech bolted forward, slammed his shoulder against the shorter mech’s upper back and was about to shove the tip of an energon blade through the back of his helm when a vicious lance of pain through his own helm sent Silent crashing to his knees.  The knife clattered to the ground, forgotten the moment Silent’s hands flew to his helmet in an attempt to find the source of the pain only to discover not a single blemish.  

Movement to his right prompted Silent to snap his head in that direction just in time to get the impression of a pede soaked in the same color as the energon running through a mech’s internals before it impacted his visor.  The world shattered and vanished.  

His audios rebooted first, catching his attacker in the middle of a tirade: “—the frag you get that from me you guttermech breeder?  Frag!  I think you broke my hand, you little slag.  C’mon,” a hand closed around Silent’s upper arm, dragging him to his unsteady feet, “I didn’t kick you that hard you fragging valve.  I’m not dragging your sorry aft back to Vitriolic, you’ll walk.  You hear me?”

Finally Silent’s optic connections booted up, his equilibrium stabilizer belatedly kicking in to assist his reeling gyroscope.  His visor sparked and a subroutine immediately attempted to re-route through his optics.  This produced a bombardment of error messages until Silent shut down the source code for the re-route.  Most of the error messages resolved themselves, leaving those informing the silver mech his visor was usable in the short term, but likely fractured beyond repair.  The hand on his arm shook him, threatening to knock him off balance again, so he lifted his head to reveal a fragmented image of his attacker.  The mech was indeed shorter than average, leaving him just shorter than Silent himself.  His armor was a pale green broken up by patches of the internal-energon pink which confirmed he belonged to the Us gang; it wasn’t a color used by anyone else.  Silent nodded to show he had heard his captor, prompting a satisfied grunt.  The hand released him, but moments later a searing line of pain blossomed across the same patch of armor and before he could react there was a sharp point pressed into his neck just over the main energon line leading to his processor.

“Give me any more of your fragging jumpy ‘buckslag and this’s going right up your taint, got that?  Well, fragger?”

Silent nodded as much as he could with the blade against his throat.  

“Good.”

The bright point of pain disappeared and Silent shook his armor slightly to try to both settle it and surreptitiously make sure he knew how his damage was going to limit his movements.  Within a nano of the green mech’s releasing him, Silent was watching him warily, this time with both visor and his sensors.  The other mech seemed to take Silent’s wariness as fear and puffed out his armor slightly in smug arrogance.  “That’s right, walk.”

Even with Silent’s obviously broken visor, no one bothered them during the walk through one of the nicer parts of the Tyrest refinery district.  Just like in Polihex, the smaller confectionaries and bars were closed but the larger ones had managed to hang on which made the area busier than most parts of the city at this time in the orn.  A feel with a sensor let him know his companion had hidden the knife and earned him a finger dug into the knife wound on his shoulder as a reminder to behave.  

They crossed just about the entire sector, skirting the edge of the warehouse district to end up in front of a nondescript detached building which looked like it could have been a warehouse converted to a cafe in a past life.  Silent’s escort walked up to a door of frosted transparasteel set directly in the center of the street-facing wall and paused, suddenly indecisive.  After a klik of staring at Silent, he seemed to have made a decision and unspaced the knife, gingerly wrapping the fingers of his damaged hand around it.  It left his other hand free to press against a piece of metal Silent now noticed was giving off the sharp hum of live voltage.  The young mech suppressed a frustrated grimace in favor of looking entirely cowed by his kidnapper, knowing he was missing things due to his broken visor and seeing no way to get it replaced in the near future.  He did notice, thanks to his sensor horns, five rapid clicks from the other side of the frosted door and that the shorter mech only moved his hand in order to yank on the door until _after_ the fifth click.  

The light green mech gestured him forward while Silent mentally braced himself for the now-expected rush of information from that hidden part of his processor as to why him knowing the way back into this building would be necessary later.  _If it’s a trap, it m_ _ight work_ _as an escape route_ _,_ was the only thought, and it didn’t come until after the young mech’s sensors registered the door locking again behind them.  For the second time Silent was startled by a simple statement instead of the flurry of images he had gotten used to.  

_Maybe I’m just getting better at thinking._

For no reason that he could name, a chill squirmed its way through his internals.  Silent flicked his attention around the room as best he could while ignoring the error messages and static from his visor, nodding once again when his escort gestured with the knife toward the only other exit the young mech could currently see.  It wasn’t until they were mostly through the room that its shape and the dark shadows ringing the ceiling made sudden sense.  The room was set up for an ambush in case the enforcers or another gang made it past the locked front door.  There was nothing on the ground floor to provide any cover against anyone shooting from the balcony above, creating a death trap as a second line of defense.  

The small voice in the back of his processor approved of the tactic and this time he couldn’t suppress the shudder it caused.  His escort snickered, grabbing his arm again to haul him through a second door and into a room that at first glance had an almost innocent cafe-like setup.  Silent couldn’t help hunching his shoulders slightly at the two dozen-odd sensors that pattered against his armor and left a phantom greasy residue behind.  

“Thrash,” someone murmured, the drawl lazy and slow, holding an edge Silent couldn’t immediately identify.  His escort dragged him to the side, presenting him to a mech whose table looked no different than any other in the room.  For a long klik, the two regarded each other, Silent observing a yellow opticed mech with a racer alt under a coat of either rust colored paint or rust-infected armor.  The mech’s professionally applied finish led Silent to believe the mech used the color as an intimidation tactic since no detailer would dare touch rust long enough to polish it.  Yellow optics flicked across the damage to Silent’s visor and arm, then to Thrash’s mangled hand.

Every mech and femme in the room had one sensor casually on the rust colored mech, even if they had an unobstructed view of him.  One gesture, much less a word, from him and no one would wait to ask how high they should jump.  He was obviously the leader, but even the new coherent voice from the back of Silent’s processor couldn’t decide if the loyalty was due to respect or fear.  A slight quirk of the rust colored mech’s expression prompted Silent to drop his gaze in obvious submission.  The leader made a brief pleased noise and his sensors left off trying to get under Silent’s armor to find his EM field.

“He hasn’t spoke a word, Vitriolic sir,” Thrash was saying in a differential tone.

“You broke your hand on his visor?”  Vitriolic asked, his words still quiet and unhurried.

Thrash paused and Silent teeked the moment of angry humiliation flash through his field.  “He broke it.  Unclaimed got my knife before I stomped his face.  Didn’t give me any fragging trouble after that.” 

Vitriolic nodded, his gaze returning to Silent.

“Wrench kept talking after you left,” a gold femme who had painted her helm in stripes of the gang’s trademark pink of internal energon said from across the table the gang leader was sitting at.  She took a long drag on a crystick and leered at Silent through the smoke of her exvent.  “Mechling here’s apparently some kinda super fighter.”  Her gaze flicked to Thrash and the leer turned to irritation.  “You lost me a hundred shanix by coming back alive.”

“His bosses agreed he never cracked his vocalzier,” a black and green mech simpered from the femme’s lap.  She drew a hand along one of his legs and into his crotch, palming his spike housing.  The mech purred, pressing into the touch then flowing gracefully to his feet.  It wasn’t this that attracted Silent’s attention, however; the mech shared Silent’s helm and frametype.  “Hi there, handsome.  Nice to see a familiar frame.”  He approached and circled the younger mech, briefly drawing a hand accompanied by an EM field thick with arousal across Silent’s shoulders before returning to lean against the femme’s side.  

“You’ve got to wonder if that’s why Wrench is so interested in the mechling,” the femme commented, looping her arms around her companion’s waist to draw him back into her lap.  “He has a Polihexian frame, even if he’s underage.  He’s gotta be, not to respond to my pet.”

“Wrench,” Vitriolic murmured before pausing for a draw of the femme’s crystick, “was summonsed to Iacon while you were out, Thrash.  Bind will brace your hand until our esteemed medic returns in a decacycle.  Until then…” he held a hand out to the femme.  “your pet’s visor.”

The mood in the room shifted and Silent was given the reason for the apparent loyalty of all present— fear.  It wasn’t clear if everyone was afraid of the Vitriolic or the femme at his side, but no one breathed until she drew the visor from the face of the mech in his lap and handed it over.  Vitriolic gestured Silent over and it was only the knowledge that the broken visor made him vulnerable which allowed him to move to the boss’s side and tolerate its replacement.  The new visor was a cyan color which didn’t match the much paler blue of his old visor, but he could immediately tell it was far superior in both crafting and versatility.  A more detailed examination would have to wait; the nano the connections seated and he could see properly, Silent offered Vitriolic a humble smile of thanks.  From the interplay he had just witnessed, it was more important to keep the gang’s leader appeased than the femme who seemed to be his second in command.

The rust colored mech’s expression became smug and satisfied, one hand lingering on Silent’s cheek possessively.  “You’d be more useful if your interface protocols were online, but I’ve got a couple other things in mind for you, too.  Thrash, take him with you when you go see Bind.  She’s to repair our new recruit’s paint, redo his finish, refuel him and find him an observation bunk.”

“Repair his paint, do his finish, get him some energon and bunk him down under a camera, yes, sir,” Thrash repeated dutifully.  The green mech only turned to move Silent away from the table after the boss had nodded his approval.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: Red vs Blue: Project Freelancer OST, Red vs Blue: The Chorus Trilogy OST, Transformers Prime OST, Fairy Tail
> 
> Coming up with equivalents of curses was more difficult than it sounds. There are translations here I haven’t used or might not use, and I may come up with more and forget to translate them here. I’m also using words that could easily translate between the two without modifying them.
> 
> fuck: frag  
> shit: slag  
> anus / ass / pussy: valve  
> dick: spike  
> butt: aft  
> asshole: valve cover  
> semen: transfluid  
> bitch: breeder  
> bastard: unclaimed  
> whore: buymech  
> slut: guttermech  
> bullshit: ‘buckslag (in reference to coilbucks)


	4. INTERMISSION

[This is my home county right now.](http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-northern-california-fires-live-red-flag-warning-issued-as-wildfires-1507770220-htmlstory.html)

 

I'm safe right now, but I don't know when I'll be in the frame of mind to write again.  I  _am_ planning on continuing later in October, if I can.

 

I'll take this chapter down and replace it when I have something to replace it with.


End file.
